HARTFORD, Conn. — From its opening possession, it was clear what kind of night Marquette women’s basketball was in for.
After UConn made a layup, the Golden Eagles inbounded the ball to Olivia Porter, who was immediately swarmed by a pack of Huskies to force a jump ball. Seconds later, it was 4-0 to the home team. Then, the blue & gold could not even get the ball in play, let alone give it up, as the referees called a five-second violation.
There was a lot of that for the rest of Marquette’s (7-4, 2-1 Big East) bout against undefeated, No. 1 ranked UConn (11-0, 3-0) on Wednesday night at PeoplesBank Arena, which ended in an 89-53 defeat. All game, UConn’s press proved insurmountable, despite Marquette’s best efforts at preparing for the suffocation.
“Unfortunately, we expected it,” Golden Eagles head coach Cara Consuegra said. “We worked on it for five straight days. But I think as as hard as you work on it, it’s really hard to replicate how good they are at it. And that’s what I kept telling our team. Our practice guys are good, but UConn works on this every single day, and certainly not the start that we wanted.”
After the opening turnovers, the UConn pressure stymied Marquette’s offense again with just under five minutes left in the first quarter, this time preventing the Golden Eagles from attempting a shot. It kept stifling MU’s offense until the end of the opening half, as the blue & gold did not make a field goal for the final 5:02, trailing 46-21 as they went back to the locker room. The same streak of clanks reoccurred when the Golden Eagles opened the second half shooting 1-for-9, allowing the Huskies to further extend their lead into the sunset.
“The third quarter was the only time I was really disappointed in our team. I thought we kind of gotten our feelings,” Consuegra said. “We got discouraged, and that was a big thing. We talked about, UConn beats people because they’re really good, and they also beat people because they make you believe you’re not good.”
There’s a reason Marquette barely averaged a single point every 60 seconds, not scoring its 40th point until the 35th minute. A reason it narrowly beat its season-worst mark of 47 points, doing so largely in part because the Huskies took off their starters for the final quarter. A reason the blue & gold, while attempting only nine less shots, made 17 fewer, shooting 21-for-55 overall and 5-for-16 from deep.
“We ran the offense pretty well. We just didn’t make shots,” Consuegra said. “I thought we shot the ball a little bit intimidated.”
The Huskies, the same ones who have not lost in 314 days dating back to last season, who boast a top-10 offense and defense, who have only been bested by the Golden Eagles once in now 24 meetings, have their defense to thank. The offense, which shot 38-for-64 from the floor and 7-for-14 from beyond the arc, did what it had to, but it was the defense leading the charge.
By the time Marquette began playing the way Consuegra prefers, in the fourth quarter, it was too late. The eight more points the Golden Eagles scored across the final 10 minutes — spearheaded by Skylar Forbes, who scored 11 of her 17 in the period — made not even a dent on the Huskies’ advantage.
Before they were taken off long ahead of the final buzzer, Sarah Strong scored a game-most 22 points, Azzi Fudd trailed with 14, followed by Blanca Quinonez (12) and Serah Williams (11). Forbes was the lone Golden Eagle to score double-digits.
“My message has been consistent to the team. When we play UConn, we have to just chip away, and at one point we’re going to beat them,” Consuegra said. “And that wasn’t today, obviously, and that might not be in February, and that might not be for five years, but every time we play them, our goal is to play them better. And I thought we did that today.”
This story was written by Jack Albright. He can be reached at [email protected] or on Twitter/X @JackAlbrightMU.
